


The Year 'Thirty-two

by everyonewasabird



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, Hopeful Ending, M/M, More serious than was necessarily warranted, can be read as romantic or platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23294446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyonewasabird/pseuds/everyonewasabird
Summary: The two old men say it has happened before.They both died long ago, they claim, after a barricade built by Enjolras and his friends. The story is absurd, but the old men's tranquil certainty raises it from risible to unsettling."Monsieur," Courfeyrac protests, "I'm twenty-five.""So were you then," says Valjean. "Every time."
Relationships: Combeferre & Enjolras (Les Misérables), Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Javert/Jean Valjean
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109
Collections: Les Misérables Poisson d'Avril





	The Year 'Thirty-two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aaymeirah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaymeirah/gifts).



> The Prompt: "In an alternate take, the barricade boys listen in on a conversation between Valjean and Javert after Valjean has offered to take Javert off their hands. They have now been scarred for the rest of their too short lives."
> 
> Content warnings: suicide mention, swearing

"Do we indulge petty vengeances now?" Combeferre murmurs.

Enjolras looks down the alley where the nameless stranger took Javert to be shot. All he sees is a confusion of black shadows under the dull glow from the night sky. "Someone had to perform the execution."

"You are better than this."

It is true, or it was: the man Enjolras was a day ago would have heard the eagerness in the stranger's request and refused. It was clear this was a personal grievance. It dishonors the barricade.

But Enjolras has seen the people fail to rise. He has seen Grantaire, incoherently drunk and caring nothing for any of it, fall asleep amid a litter of empty bottles. Enjolras has killed countless soldiers in the fighting. He has condemned two men to death and executed one of them.

The man Enjolras was a day ago no longer exists.

"I had thought the old man better as well," Combeferre adds with a sigh.

Combeferre's face in the flickering torchlight is harrowed and tired. He has looked tired for months, ever since cholera broke out again. This killing wears on him--his nerves are frayed worse than Enjolras's own. He plays at being everyone's conscience because he has no idea what else to do.

"Which of my friends should I have named executioner?" Enjolras asks softly. "That blood does not come off, Combeferre. Believe me."

Before Combeferre can answer, Courfeyrac gets up from the side of the barricade where he has been listening.

"Combeferre is right, though. The old fellow saves everybody. The Guard lost a dozen helmets because he wouldn't shoot their heads. He sniped us down a mattress for God's sake. This development is damned odd, and I want to know what it's about."

Enjolras straightens. "You suggest spying?"

"On our spy! Wouldn't it be delightful if it weren't horrible?"

All three of them go.

Enjolras is not worried about attack in the short term. On his reconnaissance he saw the soldiers of the Guard bedding down for the night alongside the crumbling buildings. The barricade is quiet. The men not on watch are talking or playing cards.

They creep down the alley. There are no candles in the windows, for the squatters in the ruins hid after Le Cabuc. But darkness never falls on Old Paris anymore.

They pick their way over the thick leaf-litter and through the ferns that choke the alley. The trees that have grown unchecked in the last thirty years have cracked the ancient asphalt and heaved it up into great, crumbling slabs. Vines grow over the ruined walls and tangle in their way, sometimes only passable with a machete. Courfeyrac wields one quickly and quietly. The shadows are very black in the faint orange glow from above.

Enjolras hears voices ahead and crouches, peering between the leaves. Courfeyrac and Combeferre press close. The scent of greenery is thick.

The old men lean against the side of a building, talking. Javert is untied. The rifle rests against the wall near them.

Enjolras feels Courfeyrac twitch, agitated. Combeferre draws himself up, assessing unexpected information. Enjolras agrees: This is not the execution of a spy.

He can only assume it poses a threat. The old men appear to be waiting.

It is too far to hear. He nods. The three of them creep nearer and hunker down again.

"It's my penance," Javert says. "I don't see why you always insist on coming too." He grunts, stretching, and he rubs his wrists where the ropes chafed. "I do know why. You're always looking for more penance."

The white-haired man shakes his head mildly.

"Bahorel's alive this time," Javert adds with a dissatisfied snort. Enjolras stiffens. Combeferre and Courfeyrac are motionless beside him. "I know I'm not supposed to regret that."

"Javert."

"I know it means nothing to you, Valjean, but he's damned heavy! And he punches."

"I will take Bahorel, if you like."

"Hardly helps. None of them ever want to go. Do you know how many times I've been bitten by the twelve-year-old? And the drunk. Like they don't know we're doing them a favor."

Valjean gazes at the sky. The warm November breeze ruffles his white hair, which gleams in the electric lights of the floating city high above.

Javert glances at him. "Don't you start that."

"I did not start it."

"Don't lecture me about people not wanting their lives saved."

"I said nothing, Javert."

Javert scowls.

Valjean returns his eyes to earth and gently smiles. "I will admit, it did cross my mind."

"Knew it."

Enjolras nods once.

They bound from the trees and surround the old men. Combeferre brought his ancient shotgun; Courfeyrac has his knife. Enjolras seizes the rifle from the wall and aims at Valjean's chest. Valjean gazes back calmly.

"In the name of the Republic," Enjolras says, "You are both our prisoners."

Neither resists as Courfeyrac binds their hands with the ropes Valjean cut from Javert.

"At least there's something different this time," Javert mutters.

\--

The two old men say it has happened before.

They both died long ago, they claim, after a barricade built by Enjolras and his friends. The story is absurd, but the old men's tranquil certainty raises it from risible to unsettling.

"Monsieur," Courfeyrac protests, "I'm twenty-five." 

"So were you then," says Valjean. "Every time."

"Every--"

"It happens the same way every time, monsieur."

"More or less," Javert growls. "Couple of variations."

A ripple goes through the men. Some are skeptical, others frightened. Joly appears to be making frantic calculations on his fingers. Bahorel bites his lip with the effort of not laughing. Combeferre listens, unreadable.

Enjolras's intuition is good, and he trusts it. It does not tell him they are lying. He also cannot believe them. He watches, waiting for more information.

Joly asks when it began; the old men will not answer. Javert does, however, ask what year it is, and at Courfeyrac's reply he mutters, "'Thirty-two again! Ha."

"And?" Enjolras asks. "The conclusions of our efforts?"

Javert draws himself taller, morose and glowering. "You fail. Every time."

Enjolras nods to Combeferre and Courfeyrac to continue the questioning. He watches in silence, interpreting the old men's answers, hunting for lies, searching for motives.

"Why do you keep coming?" Courfeyrac asks.

"Penance." Javert makes an extraordinary grimace. "Suicides get stuck. Repetitions. The rest of you are born, live, get older, find your way here, probably die--I get the two days. Starts at your damned barricade, ends when I leave it. Then, here I am again." He shrugs. "Thought I might do something useful with it. Not that you ever make it easy on me." 

Suicide. Enjolras reexamines his grim, granite face. It reveals little.

Valjean has quietly taken Javert's hand.

Perhaps Valjean was not tied well. Enjolras suspects that is not why his hand is free. Valjean bears watching.

"Monsieur," Valjean says to Enjolras. "Believe us, I beg of you. You do not succeed at this."

Valjean appears sincere--incandescently so. His eyes are soft amid the harsh ruin of his face.

Enjolras approaches. "So you wish to save us."

"We do."

Javert scowls at Enjolras's beardless cheeks and young features with irritated sorrow. "You got parents?"

Enjolras jerks his head at the sky where New Paris glows.

"As wealthy as that?" Valjean murmurs.

Javert pushes his upper lip up by his lower one. "They know you're down here?"

"They have sent searchers. Not competent ones, fortunately."

"Monsieur," Valjean says softly, "they are searching for their child."

"While they enjoy a world sustained by the labor of other people's children. And the suffering of many others besides."

He stares at Valjean until Valjean drops his gaze.

"It is the world that needs saving," Enjolras says. "Not us. We will not abandon it."

He walks away.

"That," he hears Javert grumble, "he does say every time."

\--

"Bullshit," Bahorel says. "New bullshit, I'll grant them that. Never met an enemy spy who claimed he'd been reincarnated to save my life." He shrugs. "Now I have."

Enjolras's men have tied Valjean and Javert in the basement of the abandoned restaurant they are using as a base. They convene outside.

"They believe their own story," Courfeyrac says thoughtfully. "Or they're damned good liars."

"I might point out," says Lesgles, "the latter is more likely."

"And neither would make their story true," Courfeyrac says. "I know."

Feuilly sits silent, arms folded. He looks disturbed, but he says nothing. Marius stares into a corner.

Enjolras meets Combeferre's eyes. Combeferre takes off his glasses, wipes them on his shirt, and replaces them with an odd, sad smile.

"It would be remarkable," he says. "I should like to live in a world where it could happen. But mystical or mundane--does it matter? They wish to take us from here. I think none of us means to go. Do we? Poverty and injustice will be just as real tomorrow. I am not going to abandon this."

Enjolras nods. That had been his thought as well.

"But--" Jean Prouvaire rises from his seat and searches each of them with his piercing, solemn eyes. "Do none of you remember?"

A sensation of disturbance creeps up Enjolras's neck. It is subtle and terrifying, like ghostly breath in his ear. Were he another kind of commander, he would order Prouvaire to stop talking, for he feels something precious is about to shatter.

He waits.

"Have you no memories from centuries ago, of winter snows or starry skies?" Prouvaire asks. "Do you never wake from dreams of your friends with frock coats and muskets? Machine guns and camouflage? T-shirts and jeans and 3D-printed plastic pistols--do you not recall?"

He turns slowly, sweeping his eyes across each of them. Each man shivers beneath his gaze. Enjolras is not immune.

"Do none of you--not one? The old men always come. After the first time, they have always tried to save us." Prouvaire turns suddenly to Courfeyrac. "The cannon shot off your top hat, don't you--? But no." He frowns, pensive, searching his memory. "I was dead by then."

The faces of Enjolras's men are bloodless. All eyes are fixed on Prouvaire. A terrible conviction steals over Enjolras: Their pallor is not because they do not remember.

Vague shadows move in his own mind--soldiers and gunfire. Dead friends. Centuries' worth of the same dead friends. 

He leans his back against the wall, steadying his breathing, controlling the creeping chill and the shaking in his hands.

"Do we--" Lesgles says, in a quiet voice not like his usual one, "do we ever win?"

"No," Prouvaire says.

"But--" says Joly, "do Javert and Valjean ever save us?"

"Some of us. Some of the time."

Prouvaire looks over the heads of the seated men to Enjolras. His look is sad. Enjolras knows with a certainty like cold lead in his chest what he is about to say.

"Others of us," Prouvaire says, "they never save."

\--

"I suppose you took in Fantine's daughter again."

Enjolras stands just outside the open door of the restaurant. He is listening to what the old men say when they believe themselves alone.

"Yes." The smile is clear in Valjean's voice. "Always."

"She still marrying that idiot?" There is silence. Javert snorts. "Could leave him behind just this once. I wouldn't tell."

"Javert."

"Oh all right." They say nothing for some time. Just as Enjolras is about to make his presence known, Javert speaks again. "If we do save the idiot. If she does marry him. Valjean? Stay this time."

Enjolras hears a sudden, pained breath.

"I only get two days to save everybody," Javert says. "Give me this one. I know he's an idiot. But stay."

There is a long period of silence.

At last, Valjean says, "I will."

"Thank you," Javert whispers.

\--

Enjolras unties the old men.

"We believe you," he says. "We will not let you take us. I trust you will not disturb our efforts by trying."

Valjean nods. Javert grunts.

"Swear it," Enjolras says.

They swear it.

It grows late. All the preparations for fighting have been made. Some desultory gunfire was exchanged an hour ago, but all is quiet again.

The old men could leave by the alley. Instead they sit with Enjolras's men and listen to the poems Jean Prouvaire recites.

\--

Enjolras went on reconnaissance earlier. He goes again. He is disturbed and wants no one to see it.

He slips down side streets, ducking through foliage, listening to the whispering wind and the trilling night birds. He reaches the edge of the street where the soldiers camp. He stays in the shadows, watching their scattered fires. Some sit up talking. Others sleep.

The Guard is funded by the elites of New Paris, but its soldiers are boys and girls from down here. They kill their friends and neighbors because they are paid to.

They have technology no one else can afford, though even that is ancient: vehicles running on gasoline, funded by the people who can afford to mine for gasoline. They have weaponry Enjolras has never seen up close.

A ragged boy, a civilian, pokes the shadows with a stick and then moves on past Enjolras. He is probably returning from begging food from the Guard.

The people should stop picking through rags, Enjolras thinks. They should stop keeping their heads down, stop selling their souls for a bite to eat. But what right has he to think it? He is down here by choice, and that is not the same. He has never really been hungry.

The people are too afraid, too starved, too hopeless. The gap in technology is too vast. The Guard is well armed and well fed.

Enjolras turns back towards the barricade. His heart is no lighter, but he is hemmed in by the enemy and dares not venture further.

As he passes down a narrow street, candlelight makes him look up. An old woman sits at her open window. Her head is bowed, and her hands are clasped. Her quavering voice drifts down, softly singing. He recognizes a patriotic hymn from the war they lost thirty years ago.

She murmurs it like a prayer.

Enjolras feels such a rush of kinship he could weep. She cannot fight on the barricades anymore. All she can offer is a song, and he blesses her for it.

She cannot fight, but he still can.

\--

He finds Combeferre. He does not need to say anything.

They sit on the barricade together, looking over the top. Tangled vegetation fills what was once a city street. Half-hidden among the ferns and vines and scattered trees lies the dark mass of soldiers, dotted with their fires.

Two soldiers sit up in the firelight. They are young girls, fourteen or sixteen perhaps, one with reddish hair and one with black. One nudges the other, and they laugh, hushed. With a flourish, the taller one pulls out something gleaming--it is a tin of canned food. The other claps her hands over her mouth. The last canned food was made decades ago, long before these girls or Enjolras were born. They bend over it, delighted.

With the firelight, it is a clear shot. Enjolras picks up his rifle. Combeferre exhales, a soft, heartbroken sound. 

"She could be your sister."

Enjolras watches the taller girl through the sights of the rifle. She rocks a little in excitement as the other struggles with the tin can.

"She is," he says.

He lowers the gun, still watching them. The light from New Paris floating above illuminates and fails to illuminate all who are here below. He lays his gun at his side.

Combeferre takes his hand. They say nothing.

They have sat here many times before.

Prouvaire's words will not leave him: some of the time, some of them live. Enjolras believes in revolution with all his heart, but it is only a human heart. It wants their lives as much as it wants the dawn.

"Does it really change nothing?" he asks. "To know?"

"I don't know," Combeferre says.

\--

Enjolras touches Valjean's shoulder. He leads him to a dark corner by the wall of the abandoned restaurant. No one will overhear if they speak low.

"Tell me how I die," Enjolras says.

Valjean stands quiet, unreadable. His eyes are downcast. His hair glows very white against the cracks and wrinkles of his ruined skin. It is the face of one who has been made to labor through the summer, when anyone not forced to it hides underground. Few can survive summer on the surface.

"You really wish to know?"

"Please."

"It is the same every time," Valjean says.

And he tells him.

\--

Enjolras ascends to the upper floor of the restaurant where Grantaire sleeps.

"Wake up." He repeats it until Grantaire stirs.

Grantaire lifts his head from the table. His face is lax with sleep and wears a dreamy smile. "I'd not presume to impede the revolution by sleeping it its way. If this two-foot square of rot and splinters is the step stool Lady Liberty needs for her grand ascent to the heavens, by all means stack my table against your edifice! If you would be kind enough to stack me there too, I would be of service without having to wake up for it, which seems best for both of us, as after all--" He looks around the shambles of the restaurant with bleared confusion. "--it seems earlier than usual."

"Why did you come?" Enjolras demands. "You care for none of it. Why are you here?"

He verges on shouting, and he did not intend that. But this frightened apathy, this caring and not caring, this benumbing of the soul in the face of horrors that still could be fixed--in Grantaire he sees all the others who do not rise, who do not help, who never have helped.

Grantaire leans his cheek on his hand. His eyes drift shut. "You malign me. I can be as useful to the rebellion as one of the logs you laid on your wall. I promise, if you lay me there, I won't move."

Enjolras quells the instinct to recoil. He lacks some essential piece of the ending. He knows now they die together--he does not know why. He turns away restlessly and turns back.

"I have questions. I believe you might help answer them."

"I have always admired your optimism."

"You must have come here for some reason!"

"It is positively Panglossian. _'You must have come here for some reason.'"_

"If you woke to find soldiers in here--"

"We surely are all soldiers of the Republic. I think you said so last week."

"If I were in danger--"

"If summers were a little on the warm side. If flies had some tendency towards frequenting the cess pits! If the world's wealth were distributed not entirely equitably--"

"If you woke to a firing squad about to execute me, Grantaire," Enjolras snaps, "what would you do?"

Grantaire lifts his head slowly. His eyes are haunted. An instant later he is smiling insufferably again, but it is too late.

"You know," Enjolras says.

"You know I don't know anything."

Enjolras slams his hand on the table, rattling the bottles.

_"What do you know?"_

Grantaire drops his head, wincing. "Morpheus is always vexed with me in one way or another--would you like me to confess to you all my dreams? How well that would go! How do you know anyway? I didn't think you did."

"Some old men came and told us."

 _"The_ old men came."

"Yes."

There is a moment's silence.

"I ... thought," Enjolras says. "I thought if we started the conversation before the end, something could be different."

Something both alien and familiar kindles in Grantaire's eyes. Hope, perhaps. Dim memories return to Enjolras: of Grantaire gazing up at him. A glowing warmth in his chest. The pressure of Grantaire's hand in his--

But Grantaire looks away.

"On balance, I think it's best the way it usually goes. Isn't it? You smile. Squeeze my hand. It all fades to black before I can fuck it up."

Enjolras jerks back as if slapped. There is poison in this logic, the same poison that creeps in every time. This apathy is why no one throws off tyranny. This dull despair is the reason they die.

"No," Enjolras says. "No. This cannot be the only way. This cannot be how it ends!'

"I commend you for being so committed to fixing the world you resorted to trying me."

"Something happens at the end. Something that matters. If I knew what it was--"

"Oh," Grantaire says. "I don't think you want to know that."

Enjolras springs forward, seizing the back of the chair and bringing his face within an inch of Grantaire's. "What is it?" he snarls. "What do I learn?"

It is not clear Grantaire manages to breathe with Enjolras this close. Shock makes him look years younger. His soft brown eyes are wide and wonderstruck.

His gaze drops involuntarily to Enjolras's mouth. He makes a soft sound. It is almost like an answer.

It is not an answer Enjolras likes. It raises unsettling questions he lacks the wherewithal to evaluate. It matches and does not match his dim memories of the end. If, however, there are any answers--

He kisses Grantaire.

He has never kissed anyone; this not how to begin. He is numb with the horror that everyone he loves will die today, numb with anger, numb with dread. He hardly feels the contact, let alone some more ephemeral thing. There is a shaking through his limbs. He jerks back.

Grantaire's shoulders heave with huge, startled breaths. His mouth is slack, and his eyes are huge. "I never meant for you to have to--dear God, Enjolras. Are you--"

Enjolras steps away, shaken and empty. The kiss changed nothing.

It will end as it has always ended. Then they will do it again, and again, and again.

The half-seen shadows in his memory sharpen at last.

Enjolras sees a hundred barricades, all fallen. He sucks in a breath he cannot exhale, for he is transfixed by centuries of grief. He barely feels the tears on his cheeks. He sees all of it: a hundred deaths for each of them.

Someone is saying his name. He cannot respond. "Enjolras? Will you permit me to--Enjolras?" Hesitant hands touch his shoulders, guiding him back. He falls into a chair and covers his face.

He will face it. He has before and will again. They are all brave men. They will die bravely. They always have. It is not enough, but they will do it.

Enjolras looks up at last, wearier than he has ever been. Grantaire kneels at his feet. There is no irony on his face. He looks terrified. His lips open and close. "Dear God," he says again. "Are you--?"

Enjolras only raises his eyebrows.

Grantaire is trembling as he gets up and holds out his hand. Dull and tired, Enjolras takes it.

Grantaire pulls him to the window. The panes are blurred with dust and cobwebs. Vines grow over the glass and creep in through cracks in the wall. Grantaire wrestles with the ancient casement, working one-handed because he has not let go of Enjolras. He rambles on about windows, makes a couple of jokes about the monotonous omnipresence of despair, and mumbles some more about windows.

Enjolras waits.

Grantaire heaves the window open at last. "This--" he says. "This is the only thing that ever helped."

The night air wafts in, warm and sweet. Soft voices drift with the breeze. Grantaire draws Enjolras forward. The pressure of Grantaire's hand is familiar, reassuring.

There was a look of love here at the end of the world. That is what Enjolras forgot. There was not time to comprehend the meaning of that love; neither was there need to. Warmth fills Enjolras's chest, as it did then. He looks at Grantaire, but Grantaire is gazing outside. Enjolras follows his eyes.

In the barricaded street below, Enjolras's men sit in a circle. Valjean and Javert are with them. Valjean smiles softly. Javert's head is bowed, and his hat lies beside him. His hand is in Valjean's.

Joly's head rests in Lesgles's lap. His eyes are shut, and he smiles as Lesgles plays with his hair. Bahorel sits with Prouvaire. Feuilly whittles a stick with his knife, listening with a soft smile. Marius sits beside him. Courfeyrac is telling some story, laughing and animated, the way Courfeyrac has always told stories. Combeferre pushes up his glasses and murmurs something, and Bahorel throws back his head with a roaring laugh.

Whatever hope there may or may not be tomorrow, Enjolras's friends live now. His raw longing for them is like physical pain.

"I need to go down."

Grantaire nods resignedly and releases his hand.

"No," Enjolras says, exasperated. "I meant come with me."

\--

"The internet--" Combeferre says.

"Was an absurdity," Enjolras interrupts. Arguing is an old and soothing habit for them both. He half-reclines against a mossy log at the foot of the barricade, one among their circle. Grantaire sits near him, oddly quiet. "My family was wealthy enough to have it when it existed. It was a dozen or so rich idiots yelling into the void about the death of civilization."

"No," Combeferre says. "My mother was a professor before they closed the universities. She received a grant to visit one of the last facilities with access. I was twelve. She told them I was one of her doctoral students, that I just looked young. She smuggled me in because I would never get that chance again.

"At first, yes, I saw what you did. The last users lamented to each other in a dying medium, mostly about that dying medium. But we had three weeks in the facility. I learned to find the old localities, the old-- _sites._ It was all still there. I saw the writings of common, everyday people from another age. They congregated to talk, argue, record things--oh, my friends. In that windowless office, peering into a little glowing box decades older than I was, I saw the library of Alexandria multiplied a thousandfold.

"And yes, I know--we destroyed this one too. But to have seen it was an honor. It was a glorious thing we built."

Enjolras shuts his eyes, smiling as he listens. He feels the others near him, all irreplaceable, all beloved. Grantaire breaks into an absurd argument with Lesgles, and soon Bahorel has joined, and then others--

The presence of his friends is everything Enjolras knows of peace.

\--

The predawn air is almost cool, carrying the scent of wet, green things. Enjolras watches over the gently breathing shapes of his men in the thinning darkness. Grantaire is curled beside him. The birds are a cacophony in the trees.

Enjolras rises and goes to the barricade, ascending just enough to look over. He gazes through the twilight at the mass of soldiers who will soon stir. The girls from last night are a dark huddle, asleep beside their burned-out fire.

"You were right," he says to Combeferre, who sits awake on watch duty.

Combeferre stretches and comes over.

"Do you think--" Enjolras says. He swallows, unaccountably afraid. There is movement behind him and soft footsteps, and Grantaire is beside him. In Enjolras's chest is the warmth he always felt at the end.

Perhaps he is a fool, for even now, he believes.

"We know how this ends," he says. He feels the others stirring at his back, sitting up to listen. "Is there not freedom in that? We need not prove ourselves capable of the sacrifice. We know we are. We need not wonder if we will win the fight. We will not. And so--"

He raises his eyes to the garish lights of New Paris, dull against the pure and brightening sky. The people there will be waking to their hot coffees and steaming showers and chilly air conditioning; Enjolras knows that life too. They will step out of soft beds onto soft carpets which were woven here below by children who should have been in school and never will be.

Up there is where Enjolras's blood relatives are living. That is not where his family is.

He lowers his eyes back to the dark mass of the soldiers across the barricade. It is such a tiny wall.

"You said she could be my sister," he says. "Do you think she would be? If we went over and asked?"

He feels Grantaire begin to tremble.

Combeferre polishes his glasses. He replaces them on his face. "No guns?"

"No guns."

"You think," Javert growls behind him, "if you simply go up to an enemy and say, 'I'm not going to kill you,' they'll just--"

"Javert," Valjean says, with exasperated fondness.

Javert grunts but desists.

"If not the Guard," Bahorel says, beating the dust and bracken off himself as he stands, "tell me we get to fight somebody?"

Enjolras nods at the sky.

Bahorel's grin becomes huge.

Enjolras turns to the rest. They are wide-eyed and pale, unshaven, unslept. They are brave men, all willing to die. With all his heart, he wants them not to have to.

He looks at each. One by one, they nod. Valjean nods. Javert shrugs and then nods.

Enjolras looks at Combeferre. Combeferre smiles as he has never smiled in any lifetime.

"We will share your fate."

Enjolras turns to Grantaire.

"Can't you see what the world is?" Grantaire snaps.

He has sunk down onto one of the logs, looking away. Usually he grins during his bitter speeches, absenting himself from horror. Now he hunches, miserable. Far from his usual bland smile, he looks close to tears.

"Yes, convince the Guard to join you! We can all rule together over ruin and dust. Then fight your mad war. It might as well be against heaven itself, it very nearly is--but no matter! And then, when you have somehow won? Look at the world! Look at the mess, the deformity, the disease. What is worth dirtying your hands and getting your hopes up for? What do you think is left?"

"You joined," Enjolras insists. "You joined at the end!"

"Apotheosis was easy! One heroic act to make up for the rest of my life. I was brave enough to join your cause for thirty seconds, yes. Claim I belonged to it. Die before I had to follow through!"

Enjolras whirls away and stares up past the barricade. The silver sky glows beyond the barricade's dark silhouette. He shuts his eyes.

Grantaire begs for hope because he sees none. It is the same conversation they have had over and over. Perhaps it is the only one they ever had.

Except--

Enjolras thinks of a hundred lonely deaths, a hundred times he looked for dawn and found a tomb that buried everyone he loved. Every time, he steeled his nerve and stared down the barrels of the rifles, unflinching.

Every time, a sudden, hoarse voice called out. Someone stepped from the darkness. A last friend arrived.

Enjolras died smiling every time.

He throws back his head and laughs, sharp and joyous, echoing among the ruined buildings. It startles the dawn birds into silence. He turns to Grantaire.

Grantaire trembles like he might shatter into pieces. Enjolras's eyes are dazzled by the dawn, and his smile is not a comforting one. He is too full of joy.

"You always belonged to it," he says. "Not thirty seconds. Always."

Something changes in Grantaire's face. He gets up.

Enjolras turns to the rest of his men. It has been an honor to live beside them, and it has been an honor to die beside them. Every one of them, every time.

He turns to climb the barricade. They follow.

Dawn is breaking over the ruins of Paris as they step down onto the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for the prompt!! I had so much fun with this!
> 
> The title is a reference to _'39,_ Queen's tragic love song about relativistic time dilation.
> 
> Happy April Fool's Day, everybody!


End file.
